Elisa's Green Scene

Organic Express

Today I received my third delivery from Organic Express, so I figured it was about time for a service review.

Organic Express is a WebVan-like service that delivers fresh organic produce to your door.

There are several aspects to the service that are extremely attractive:

• You can choose a $29 or a $39 box to be delivered every other week.
• You can pre-define fruits and vegetables that you just don't like.
• You can go in each time before your delivery, see what they plan to send you, review alternative choices and customize the order.
• Finally, you can add on other organic grocery products from a long list...things like breads, salad dressings, juices, condiments, pastas and more.
• They will leave the delivery at your door, rather than requiring you to be home.

Each of those features are extremely convenient fopr someone like me: a finicky person who doesn't like to answer the door while I'm working away at home in my pajamas (typical blogger, yes, I know.)

The main reason I started this service is to somehow get myself to eat more fresh foods and more fruits and especially vegetables. I am the microwave queen, and the prepared foods queen. And it just ain't healthy enough...I should eat a lot healthier, especially given my vegtarianism.

Results: well I would have to admit that every other Friday when the delivery shows up there is some portion of the previous delivery that didn't get eaten, and hasn't stayed good. But overall I would also have to say that I am making more of an effort to fit in the fruits and vegetables glaring at me from the counter and the fridge.

And the service...I like it pretty well. The quality? I don't have a breadth of experience with organic fruits and vegetables, so it seems fine to me too.

I think there may be one or two competitors in the San Francisco Bay Area...anyone else tried any other similar service and have some feedback?

technorati tags:organic

Case Study in reducing your energy footprint

Greenlight Magazine, a great new digital magazine that talks about all things eco, had an eye-opening case study about a couple who made certain changes to their house to save energy and resources, and the impact of those changes.  When I saw the changes they made, I thought they wouldn't have that much of an impact, but I was pretty surprised by how much they reduced their electricity and water usage, and even more surprised by the total annual savings.  For instance, I did not know that you can get fancy shower heads that make a little water feel like a lot of water.  Perfect for me, because there are some things I am not giving up in my lifetime, and a good, strong-flowing shower is one of them.  I mean, we all have to pick our battles right?  But as it turns out, there is help for people like me.  That change, and updating their toilets reduced their water bill by 80%, for a monthly savings of almost $150.  That is not insignificant.

See the full article here - it gives some really easy and simple suggestions and gives you an idea of what the savings could be.  And for those of you that have seen An Inconvenient Truth, you will know that if we all just do a bit, it will have a huge impact.

E-commerce, sex toys and some uptight people

Guy Kawasaki brought to my attention his post today because it's a little off the beaten path for him. (I would have found it on my own eventually of course, but I'm a bit behind on my feed reading.)

He has done a 15-question interview with Dr. Sandor Gardos. Who is Dr. Sandor Gardos? A licensed clinical psychologist and sex therapist as well as a board-certified sexologist. And the CEO of MyPleasure, an e-commerce site devoted to disseminating information about sex and sexual health...and to selling sex toys.

Now on the surface one might think this was a slightly prurient topic for Guy, a business, entrepreneurship and marketing blogger, tocover. But the ensuing interview discusses a lot of universal truths about e-commerce and customer service.

Really, isn't hip & zen also in the business adding sensual pleasure to its customers' every-day lives and environment?

Of course, there are those who think Guy sunk to some new low with the post, probably because the words "vibrator" and "orgasm" are mentioned out loud, but I thought it was a fascinating story. After all, doesn't this advice apply to most of us who are trying to serve some customer base in some way?

 

"Find a niche that is currently under-served in the way you want to serve them. Then, continue to mine the data, listen to your customers, and keep creating ever more experiences that are *amazing* for them. Also, stop thinking that you are selling a product—that puts you into commoditization and the only thing you can compete on is price. You are selling a *solution* to a problem that your customer may not even know they had. Finally, forget about all the latest trends and gee-whiz technology; if it doesn’t really help the majority of your customers, it is worthless or worse."

Check it out.

Starbucks Challenge as "users-know-more-than-we-do" journalism

I am here at Bloggercon, a small "un-conference" here in San Francisco. We just had a session about distributed citizen's journalism or media, led by Jay Rosen of PressThink, which he did some set-up description of here and here.

One of Jay's requests was to get examples of distributed citizen projects that are doing something that traditional media just won't do. He gave as an example: what if citizens came together to read and analyze every bill before Congress and published it, so we actually knew what laws were being considered and passed. (Note: I'm kinda surprised he's not aware of Congresspedia, which purports to do just that.) Here is the specific request:

Cases-on-record that could be called open source journalism and the lessons from them.

Anyway, I used the StarbucksChallenge project as an example. It's particularly of interest because:

• It's ongoing, not just a one-off effort
• It's the kind of data that is not only easily distributable, but must be due to the geographical distribution of the data points.

Jay extrapolated the example to say that the entire aspect of holding corporations to their promises was a great use for distributed citizen projects.

FYI.

Another fab prefab at Sunset

After highlighting the Glidehouse and Breezehouse prefabs by Michelle Kaufmann Architecture at the last few Sunset shows in California, this year they showed a new prefab house by Siegel & Strain Architecture which looks very cool.

The last two years I stood in the 3 hour line waiting to get into the houses, but this year I didn't have the strength, unfortunately.  This house is made of SIPS (Structural Insulated Panels), which are very energy efficient.  The counters are made of crushed quartz, and reclaimed wood is used in the house.  The house was built in 3 months, start to finish.  You can see more at the Sunset Magazine site.

Whole Foods stops selling live lobsters

Seeing live lobsters piled up in tanks has always been one of those sights that just really depresses me. I won't sit in a restaurant where I have to face such a sight. And I avoid the entire aisle at Whole Foods where they keep their live lobster tank.

But I guess I can change that to past tense now, since Whole Foods has announced that they will discontinue selling live lobsters in any of their stores. My mantra is always that one step is better than no steps, so since Whole Foods isn't going to be a vegetarian store any time soon, I consider this news good news.

Key excerpt from the press release:

In November 2005, Whole Foods Market assembled an internal task force to review every step of its live lobster procurement process in an effort to improve humane conditions. A deadline of June 15, 2006 was set to determine if more humane alternatives could be implemented. Evaluating the biology, natural environment, behaviors and needs of the animals, the team assessed every angle from traps and transport to in-store tank design and take-home cooking instructions.

"We place as much emphasis on the importance of humane treatment and quality of life for all animals as we do on the expectations for quality and flavor. It is an integral component of our standards for every species we sell, and lobster cannot be any different," said John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market. "Part of our business is to continually learn and evolve, and while the door is open to new information, we are satisfied with our decision to stop selling live lobsters at this time."

The Company partnered with an innovative seafood company, Clearwater Seafoods of Nova Scotia, Canada, to experiment with different handling techniques that support natural conditions to help lobsters thrive. Since lobsters are typically solitary creatures, the team developed alternatives including single-layer holding crates on the boats, individual holding compartments during storage, and unique "condos" for in-store tanks. Whole Foods Market further looked into the biology and sentience in lobsters, including studying the final report of the November 2005 European Food Safety Authority Animal Health and Welfare panel which concluded all decapod crustaceans, including lobsters and crabs, are complex in behavior and appear to have some degree of awareness, feeling pain and having the ability to learn.

 

Kudos to Whole Foods for undertaking this effort and for making the right choice when confronted with the results of their research.

My Dinner with Howard

Schultz, that is.

The CEO of Starbucks.

Oh, and I should mention 700 other people were there.

Anyway, if you're a green blog aficianado then you know there are quite a few green bloggers who are anti-Starbucks. Much of this is driven by the Starbucks Challenge, as spearheaded by hip & zen friends green LA girl  and CityHippy.

I have a bag of Starbucks' sole fair trade coffee, Cafe Estima, by my coffee maker right now, so I'm trying to do my part to support the economic vote for fair trade.

Meanwhile, I saw Starbucks founder and Chairman Howard Schultz speak at a recent function, and found myself extremely impressed...which is something of a dilemma, no?

Electronic recycling idea for green entrepreneurs

I am posting this in the hopes of inspiring some of you budding green entrepreneurs, as this is a great idea and needs to be spread around!  I think this is a great franchise concept, too.  There's a company called Green Citizen doing electronics recycling where they will pick up your old computers, batteries, cellphones, phones, TVs, CDs, DVDs, Print cartridges, TVs, Stereos etc. and recycle them responsibly.  Unfortunately this company only operates in the Bay Area, which is lucky for me, but unlucky for most people.  They also have nifty little boxes you can get to put your batteries, cellphones etc. into until its full and ready to be dropped off.  I would love to see this go national!

For those of you not in the Bay Area, there is a database you can search for Electronics Recycling and Reuse programs by State at the EIA Environment Consumer Initiative website.

Fetzer wines goes solar

I find these stories so heartwarming - even if we have a goverment that doesn't care about the environment, some companies are taking up the challenge.  Fetzer Vineyards just announced they will become the nation's largest solar energy vineyard with a 901kW photovoltaic solar panel system, beating out Rodney Strong's 766kW solar system.  I love it when testosterone is put to such good use!

Another story that lifted my post-'An Inconvenient Truth' depression is that many corporations are giving their employees large incentives to buy hybrid cars - Hyperion and Google give each employee who buys one $5,000!  There is a list of many others giving incentives here - what a great idea!

My latest hip & zen order

So, I got some more hip & zen stuff, and I thought I'd share my experiences with two of the items.

I received the handbag I have been coveting since I started this blog...the messenger bag made from aluminum can pop tabs. Now, I have to be honest...from the description Messenger Bag, and because I never even glanced at the dimensions, and because it's hard to tell relative sizes of things when every product photo is a similar size, I was imagining a larger messenger bag. To me it's really a handbag, not a messenger bag.But this does not in any way obviate the immense cool-ness of this bag. It seems sturdy and reliable, woven together with strong macrame and lined. I wore it out last night and all my friends were taken with it, first just the apearance, but then even more so once they figured out what it was made of. (OK, they didn't really figure it out on their own...I told 'em right away.)

I also received this organic cotton tie-dyed summer dress. What you might not be able to see from the photo is that the top is more ribbed cotton (Kinda like a wife-beater T) and the skirt is more smooth cotton. The ribbed portion goes to the hips, and there are a couple of horizontal seams, at the waist and at the hips. I know, I know, if your mom was like mine she talked a lot about horizontal not being "flattering", but I think this dress is very flattering. I wore it with a little black tie cardigan over it by day, and then when I went out that evening I actually put on a pair of black leggings and wore it more like a long top than a short dress. (Here in Northern California the temperature drops 20 degrees at night even during the summer.)

Now, I have to confess that I haven't bought something colorful in a long time. I used to always wear brights, jewel tones, but somewhere in the last few years I've migrated to black, gray and other neutrals. It was really fun to put on something colorful, and I forgot that colorful actually looks good on me. Red being perhaps my best color. In fact a man on the street actually paid me the kind of compliment you just have to accept with a smile, rather than get offended. As I was walking by he said, "Ma'am, I mean you no disrespect, but I just wanted to tell you, you are a beautiful goddess!"

So, I smiled and said "thanks." (And kept right on walking briskly.) Wouldn't you? My S.O. was sick, so I was meeting friends on my own. When I got home that night I told him about the "beautiful goddess" comment, and he said "well, of course." But when is the last time he told me that? (A long time, I can tell you.)

So, there you have it: a very cool bag, and dress that will render you a "beautiful goddess." It was a very hip & zen day.